Newark's Bruce Street School for the Deaf celebrates century of advances

Jerry McCrea/The Star-Ledger(Left to right) Lori Jones of Colonia, a deaf studies graduate and former teacher of English to the Deaf; carries on a humorous conversation in sign language; with Bertha Streicher of Edison, a Bruce Street School alumni, who attended the school from 1930-1942; during an anniversary celebration day held at the Bruce Street School in Newark.

NEWARK — When Newark’s Bruce Street School for the Deaf celebrated its 100th birthday last week students and teachers and alumni signed their way through time, using their fingers to sing songs, dance and tell the story of a school that helped many of them to be understood.

Margaret Herron was on her second tissue, dabbing her eyes underneath her glasses.

She had met former students before the program began, but the tears came as she saw others on stage paying tribute to the school where she was vice principal for 14 years.

"I’m flabbergasted so many people came back,’’ she said.

The two-hour party happened last Friday at George Washington Carver School, where Bruce Street is located on Clinton Place in the city’s South Ward.

Using signs, students took the audience through a history of education for the deaf and how technology changed and improved their lives. The phonograph children used to hear sounds gave way to headphones plugged into listening stations and that morphed into sleek hearing aids that are now cosmetically appealing. Some have animal prints and every color under the rainbow.

What struck me the most, though, was how much the hearing world takes for granted or has long forgotten, and in some cases, didn’t know.

You know that avante garde language — texting. Well, the deaf community was up on that before many of us. Ukstins said expensive rates on special phones they used made them come up with ways to shorten their sentences. So, yeah, they were already writing "u" "r" and words like "L8R."

"My mother used to yell at me all the time,’’ said Laura Muchnick of Edison of the high phone bills she had as a teenager.

Jerry McCrea/The Star-Ledger(front left to right) David Carrillo of Newark, Bruce Street School student; shows Jamie Mann, a student teacher of the Deaf; a proper baseball batter's stance; while viewing a video during an anniversary celebration day held at the Bruce Street School in Newark.

But those phones — Telecommunication Device for the Deaf — are a thing of the past. They’ve been replaced by high-tech videophones, where deaf people can talk to each other like you and I. Before, they had to rely a on third party to interpret their conversation. Cellphones with webcan capability eliminates the middle man, too, so deaf people can see each other and chat.

"The new technology allows them to establish their own voice and rely less and less on someone else to have a conversation,’’ Ukstins said.

Other simple amenities that we never give a thought to, like ordering take out food, were nearly impossible for the deaf but now there are services to help make the call to the pizza place or Chinese restaurant.

Confidential conversation with your doctor on the phone, the deaf can do that, now. No one has to stand by the doctor to translate. Then there are swimmers like Ukstins daughter, who can compete on her national team. She can’t hear the start, but she knows when to jump off the blocks because there’s a strobe light that flashes.

When Bruce Street started classes for deaf children on Chestnut Street in 1910, Ukstins said the district realized that deaf and hard of hearing children could be taught in a school setting instead of having to go away to facility far from home.

"These classes marked the opening of the first day program for deaf and hard of hearing children in New Jersey and one of the first in the country,’’ she said.

Out of its glorious past and all of its changes come great people.

In the celebration audience were graduates like Barbara Streicher (1939) who was a key puncher for a department store and insurance company and Jennifer Genao (2004) who works two jobs in computers. many of our graduates come back and work for Newark public schools.

"We can all get along, " said Streicher, 86. "All we have to do is love each other.’’

And there was plenty of it when you looked across the gymnasium at a sea of hands fingering letters and symbols of conversation as old friends caught up to each other, smiling and laughing, happy to see each other again.